In my first iPad Gen1 and iPad Gen2 I received a 10W charger. When you plugged in your devices to a lower rated source It would display a msg box telling you the device could not charge from that source.

It seem now the latest update for the iPad minis permits the larger brother iPad2 to charge from the 5w charger.

I will take longer! However you are no longer stranded by a limited division of which charger can charge the apple devices - as they all can, just at different rate now.

Try it yourself and let me know if you charge the 3 and 4 with the 5w iphone ipod adapters.

Friday October 26th the Microsoft Surface RT arrived at the
office. I was summoned to my boss’s
office for the grand unpacking. If I had
planned ahead I could have used my iPhone 4 to film the event and post it on
YouTube however the desire to hold the device and turn it ON was more inviting
than becoming a proxy reviewer for Engadget’s website.

1980 was the first time we had a personal computer in our
house. It was a Kaypro computer. It weighed 29 pounds more
than any persons lap could hold. Then
the term “portable computer” meant you could remove it from the building and
take it else where. Today I am typing on
this entry on a Macbook Air which weighs 2.38 pounds.

This morning Amazons front page main title is: “Much More
for Much Less”

I was born at the right time to start with the CPM operating
system on the Kaypro thru the DOS, Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and mobile phone
operating systems and languages.

If you are not aware Technology is moving at a rapid
pace. The New iPad (those who are
keeping score – iPad4) is replacing a 7 month old machine the New iPad (iPad 3)

I have used and owned many technology devices in my
life. The main point that most of the
reader who are in the USA overlook is the fact that we are in the USA. The devices we purchase have a great digital
garden to support them.

The Kaypro computer had a 7-inch screen. It was a TV tube with two colors – Black and
Green. You could see the 80-column
screen flicker with characters – have you every played Pac-Man emulated on the
screen with the ABC characters.

Traveling across the world you will find that not all apps
on your device will function as they did back home because they are not offered
outside of your country of origin.

I think the main question a buyer of technology should be
asking is Function. The greatest Specs
with out function limit you. The most
beautiful form with out function is the same as a crystal vase on your shelf –
not a good cereal bowl in the morning.

My advice for those looking to purchase on this year: If the device is your only technology device
you buy what you WANT and LIKE.

Consider this parallel universe if its not your only
device? Ever go shopping for clothing,
shoes, and accessories with your wife, girlfriend, sister or mother? If you listen carefully you will hear the
little voices coming out of there heads saying:
“This goes well with that and I can use it also with that outfit” ”Do
you think this clashes with that?” “Ohh
I love how that combination looks on you”.

Portable devices such as tablets and computers can offer a
whole lot more when they are combined with the digital echo system you have at
home and the manufacturer offers online.

Pros of each Device:

Microsoft Surface RT:

There is a new functionality named SmartGlass which will let
you share the content off your tablet to your XBOX 360. Microsoft office is loaded on the
tablet. You can have more than one user
profile on the tablet if you share it with others.

Amazon Kindle or Kindle HD:

If you are an Amazon consumer with an annual Amazon Prime
service you can consume videos and read books off the Amazon site. Its the cheapest device. Its a step up from the kindle reader in many
ways.

Apple Ipad or Ipad mini:

Over 270 Thousand applications. Airplay permits you the ability to share to
your TV screen. If you are a cord cutter (a person who gets their entertainment
content over the web or air vs Cable Providers) the Airplay or Smart glass are
a huge bonus.

iPad mini or not:

The mini will fit in a purse where the larger one will
not. Its lighter which makes it nice to
hold for prolonged periods. It has an
option for LTE wireless which non of the other sub 9 inch tables offer. The screen is non retina which means the
applications are smaller. Speaking with
individuals who are above 50 in age that wear glasses they retina does not make
a difference for them however they prefer the larger iPad over the new mini.

You might have had that view back in 2008. Back in PDC 2008 the Cloud was the emerging
technology, how do I know this I was there in Los Angeles that year.

Well 4 years later I am back from TechEd 2012 in
Orlando with my Apple iPad in hand, It was with me in every session. I was not alone, next to me was a person
carrying a Samsung tablet which had the brightness turned down so low one might
have to throw a blanket over his head to read the screen in the dim session we
were sitting in.

I have worked in manufacturing, healthcare, financial,
automotive and franchising vertical markets and the use of tablet and mobile devices can no longer be ignored.

At a bare minimum there are a number of options of what you
can do with your websites to achieve a friendly and meaningful experience to
your end users. The days of designing
your site or application to a fixed screen size 1024x768 is no longer the
appropriate paradigm.

Damian Edwards a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft had a
number of sessions this year at TechEd Orlando 2012.

Dev304: Asp.Net for Mobile and Tablet Development

Dev305: Microsoft Asp.Net and Real-time Web.

The Reason I am blogging about these sessions and this topic is the room was
jam packed, I left excited about what I can do and should do with MVC at the
companies I work with.

You might find yourself like me new to MVC and JQuery. In my opinion these are some the most
flexible patterns to code for the Mobile and Tablet Segment.

I am sure you can find other books as well but here is one you might want to look at:

I am currently very pleased with the Pro ASP.NET MVC 3
Framework book Steven Sanderson and Adam Freeman.

There are few challenges since I am playing in VS2012 RC MVC4 but
nothing you cant figure out contact me if you have questions on the examples I
might be ahead of you)

Some of the best T shirts and swag was in 2008 at PDC I
think I got 3 infragistics shirts, the only one I did not get - since they ran out
was a star trek themed one.

Since 2008
the swag at PDC and TechEd had dropped significantly.

So I am excited about VS2012 and with that comes the
drudgery of upgrading all the plugins and controls I use. So Jet Brains is a no brainer. I have made the leap with Infragistics with
visual studio 2005, 2008, 2010 and now 2012.

Most of these companies will not support you directly playing in Beta
software but that has not stopped most developers.

Getting my feet wet in MVC has peaked my interest in Jquery
controls. Based on the positive experience
I had with Infragistics - NetAdvantage for JQuery and NetAdvantage for IOS [which
is in beta] will be the next set of controls I get.

Stay tuned for my next post: MVC from the Amazon book shelf to
real world applications. I will share
what I learned and try to keep you excited about MVC and the Tablet as much as
I am.

I just started using AllWebMenus Pro version 5.1. Trying to figure out how to generate the Menu execlusivly in code was a challange because in the documentation they had refrences to styles that I could not find in the generated Java Script from their tool.

The Short and Sweet Blog version: The default menu.js will not contain any styles you define if you dont create a menu item prior to generating the menu with the AllWebMenus Tool. The Tool doesnot generate these styles even so the second option is to use the menu and styles only and I will code my menu in the AllWebMenus Dialog window. SO create a menu with sub menus using your styles so you can see the code thats generated and copy it out to use.

In your menu.js or customename_menu.js you will find a function named awBuildMenu(). In that function there are style objects that are created and instanciated. Mostly they are named: its1 for itemstyle1 or grs1 for groupstyle1 etc.

You can use these as you add items to your menu in your code at run time using these styles etc.

Example of Code from my Master Page:

I am going to move this to web service but for the example of a manual generation in your code this explains.

PS: The long version will have images when I have time. I only try to blog about problems I have solved that I could not find in Google. There is too much crap to wade through with people blogging for the sake of rates. Barry Shulam